A Haunting on the Hill

by Elizabeth Hand

“You should all stay together. Try to keep a fire going.”

Melissa raised a finger, silencing us. She tipped back her head as though listening, and gazed up at the ceiling. Her eyelids fluttered shut, and when she opened them wide, I saw her anger give way to something like despair. “It’s too late, then,” she murmured, and walked to the front door.

the little green door opened onto what appeared to be a long, straight, narrow tunnel, blindingly bright.

Squinting, he saw them, then, within the whorl: tiny human shapes—children, and larger figures in navy blue and white. A reddish slash that was a tablecloth on a patch of emerald-green lawn freckled with daffodil yellow, tiger lily orange. He drew closer to the doorway, pressing his face into it, longing to be closer to them, until he felt a warmth like the summer sun. He wasn’t imagining it. The tiny figures were real, they were alive—he saw them as through the wrong end of a telescope. One child wore red. The other was too faint for him to make out. A yellow shirt? A lively speck raced between them. Another child? But a child that small wouldn’t be able to move that fast. A dog, he thought. It was like one of his paper theaters come to life. An irresistible urge overwhelmed him, to grasp the magical panorama and hold it.

A picnic again

yet the reality he’d entered shouted otherwise. And why would he—why would anyone—choose to remain here, in this world, rather than in the shimmering landscape he’d glimpsed, just out of reach?

I remembered how I’d felt after Macy-Lee’s accusations, that sense of her trying to wrest away something that was mine by rights.

Uhhhh…..not your story…

I turned toward them, smiling, and froze. A huge black hare stood upright in the kitchen doorway—far bigger than the ones I’d seen before.

Oh boy.

when I tried to push it from me, I couldn’t get hold of its fur—my hands ripped through it like wet newsprint. No matter how I fought, there was only moist warmth, something gelatinous smearing my cheek as I rolled onto my stomach and covered my head with my hands, its weight pressing me down. It grew heavier, far more so than a creature that size should be, and I felt something else moving inside it, something—

She opened it—Melissa.” Nisa looked up. “I wondered what the hell she was doing.” “Letting the hare in.” Amanda strode to the front door, closed and locked it. “But why?” “Because she’s a witch,” said Amanda. “They all are. Inside Evadne’s house, she had some kind of altar. She told me we need to leave Hill House. Ordered me, actually. She and Ainsley and Melissa, they’re up to something. Those rings…”

Or perhaps, equally satisfying, vanquishing an evil coven?

What if it has all been real? The three of them are in some ongoing power struggle, and we’re simply collateral.”

this is like one of those spaces Stevie always talks about with his pagan friends—a thin place, where you can access things you can’t, normally.

“If all those old women were like hares on the mountain Then all us young maids would get scythes and go hunting…”

Oh my

She raised her hand to knock, thought better of it as she glanced down at his baggy sweater, the frayed hem of her short skirt. She’d change first, into something nice. Remind him of what he was missing, even if she had no intention of falling into bed with him again.

What the heck

He was lying. As he walked away, she’d seen his phone in his back jeans pocket. He hadn’t picked it up from the floor. It had been there all along. That light had come from somewhere else. A crawl space behind the wall? She dug her nails into her palms in mounting anger. Why had he lied, what was he hiding from her? Something special: something beautiful. They’d always shared with each other, always had so much in common.

Especially here. And they’d never kept secrets. Not from each other. So why was he doing it now? She’d see for herself, later. She deserved to have a secret, too.

Dear lord.

Acting demanded a safe space, a fine and private place within the larger world: Amanda knew that Hill House was fulfilling that role.

beyond the brightly lit kitchen loomed the rest of the house. If Amanda let her gaze extend past this room, she could sense it, crouching like a trapdoor spider, waiting to spring. Light, she thought, we need more light.

Stevie's door has a lot of light

Holly seemed not to have even noticed Nisa’s efforts. Had the vintage purple tunic and stylish ankle boots been meant for Stevie? Hmmm.

it is a fact that some definite agreement is formed between witches and devils whereby some shall be able to hurt and others to heal, that so they may more easily ensnare the minds of the simple and recruit the ranks of their abandoned and hateful society.’”

Perhaps some shall join and some shall die

Her voice hitched and her eyes widened, but then she caught herself. “There was blood in the nursery And blood in the hall And blood on the stairs Her heart’s blood was all…”

The knocks continued, louder and more urgent.

Oh no. Knocks.

Thump. Everyone jumped. Nisa let out a cry as someone knocked softly from the veranda, outside one of the other rooms. The sound was followed by a series of sharper raps. On the wall? A window? They remained motionless, listening as the rapping sound began to travel along the veranda, racing from room to room, quicker and quicker, circling the house.

It's starting

She closed her eyes and held her breath as Stevie pulled away. It would see him first, it would take him. Please take him, she thought, tears welling behind her closed eyelids. It can’t see me, it doesn’t know I’m here…

Nisa had seen the black shape outside one of the windows from where she crouched beside the staircase: a sinuous shadow that slid across the veranda and then flung itself against the glass. As she watched in horror, two other shapes had joined it, all three leaping repeatedly at first the windows, then the doors, striving to get in. The hares, she thought, giddy with terror. They’ve come to kill us.

All the lights were off, save a fuzzy gray glow from the open doorway of the nursery, like a frozen computer screen.

Now she grew angry. They were supposed to all be in this together, with the same goal: the play. Yet there was Stevie, upstaging her in the parlor, pulling out all the stops as that damned dog. Her voice and her songs were what knit the entire story together, even Holly had admitted that.

The worst the worst the worst

She realized then what those black shapes were—not the hares but Stevie, Holly, and Amanda. Manifesting themselves as they truly were: abominable creatures intent on stealing her voice, her power. Destroying her.

I mean…we love a metaphor

Radiant light spilled into the room, almost blinding her, the most beautiful light she’d ever seen. It didn’t even register as light; it was more like an emotion, like meeting someone you immediately love.

The huge shapes were no longer doll sized. And they no longer shone. Their brightness dimmed, the colors bled from them until they no longer resembled toys or butterflies but something else, something from another kind of dream, a dream she’d had long ago and forgotten and now desperately didn’t want to remember.

Quickly he looked down, to the wood panel beneath the mirror. “Oh god, no. Nisa…” He bent to trace the carving there. A young woman fleeing some unseen pursuer, her arms outstretched, her mouth a perfect O of terror within the nimbus of her wildly curling hair.

Only Hill House neither sleeps nor dreams. Shrouded within its overgrown lawns and sprawling woodlands, the long shadows of mountains and ancient oaks, Hill House only watches. Hill House waits.